Wood science underpinning
tropical forest ecology and management
Tervuren, Belgium, May 26-29, 2015
Linking past to present: resuming research at Nkula park (Luki, DR Congo)
after decades of forest growth
T. De Mil1,2, B. Angoboy Ilondea3, C. Delvaux2, B. Verstraete4, S. Janssens4, P. Stoffelen4, J.
Van den Bulcke1, M. De Ridder2, J. Van Acker1 and H. Beeckman2
1
UGCT - Laboratory of Wood Technology (Woodlab-UGent), Faculty of Bioscience Engineering,
Ghent University (UGent), Belgium
2 Service of Wood Biology, Royal Museum for Central Africa, Belgium
3 Institut National pour l'Etude et la Recherche Agronomiques (INERA), Democratic Republic of the
Congo
4 Botanic Garden Meise, Belgium
Corresponding author: tom.demil@ugent.be
Keywords: African tropical forest, historic data, long-term tree growth, phenology, tree
ecology
The Luki Biosphere Reserve (33,000ha) is part of semi-deciduous tropical rainforest situated
at the southernmost edge of the Mayombe forest near the Atlantic Ocean (western D.R.
Congo). It was established in the 1940’s by the INEAC (Institut National des Etudes
Agronomiques du Congo belge) and extensively used from 1947 until 1960 to conduct
several forestry experiments. In order to improve knowledge on tropical forest species, the
Nkula park (170ha) with additional research station was developed to study (i) tree
autecology, (ii) impact of microclimate on forest formation, and (iii) tree growth and
phenology. From 1948 until 1957, the park was weekly investigated by monitoring the
phenology of 6300 trees and shrubs. Moreover, tree growth (dbh) was periodically recorded
and herbarium specimens were made. Afterwards, no significant research was carried out
and the obtained results remained unpublished. Recently, an international scientific
collaboration was set up with INERA (the successor of INEAC) and preserved documents
with phenological data were digitized and analysed. Moreover forest research at Nkula park
was resumed by i) installing monitoring equipment, ii) tracking tree phenology, iii) reestablishing the trails and iv) retrieving 500 trees that were observed in the 1940’s. The
recovery of these individual trees provides a unique opportunity to conduct spatio-temporal
forestry analyses. Historical plant functional trait data can be compared to newly measured
traits and the possible observed chronological variation can be correlated with available
climatic data. As a result, this will enable us to elucidate the response of tropical forests to a
changing environment.